GM Blames UAW for EV-free CES

Could we have fit more acronyms in that headline? Doubtful.

Now safely ensconced in a four-year labour deal with the workers who left its assembly lines in the dark for six weeks, General Motors is blaming this fall’s strike for a product delay. Well, a delay of a debut, really.

As a result, next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will have to do without a new GM electric vehicle.

A high point of the year for tech nerds (and increasingly, automakers eager to show off their latest electronic wizardry), CES 2020 was to feature a GM electric car; now, its big reveal is being pushed back to a later date.

Speaking to MotorTrend, GM spokesman Tony Cervone said, “We had a plan to go to CES and frankly we can’t go to CES without putting our best foot forward and we could not get the models done that we wanted to get done with the strike, frankly,” adding, “We had a plan, we worked like hell,” but things didn’t come together.

The strike restricted access to GM facilities, complicating things further.

The exact nature of the model is still a mystery, though there are two strong candidates: a self-driving Chevy Bolt-based vehicle created by GM’s Cruise division, or the unnamed Cadillac EV crossover teased last January. Given that there’s already invites floating around for a January Cruise event, it’s likely the Caddy.

GM is expected to foist new capabilities on its Super Cruise driver-assist feature, and a place like CES would be just the place to reveal it. Having such technology appear on a production-bound electric model would be an ideal setup for the trade show.

Whatever name Cadillac decides to bestow upon it, and it will be a real name, Caddy’s EV crossover is expected to land in 2021.

[Image: General Motors]